Taunting probed in Acton teen’s suicide

Wednesday

Oct 22, 2008 at 9:09 AMOct 22, 2008 at 9:12 AM

CHRISTINA HOAG Associated Press Writer

ACTON, Calif. (AP) — Fourteen-year-old Jeremiah Finton Lasater was a 6-foot-5, 220-pound, sweet-tempered boy who loved football and video games. But homicide detectives say he also was the target of constant taunts.

On Tuesday, authorities were still trying to find out whether that bullying led the boy to shoot himself to death in a high school restroom.

Grief counselors on Tuesday consoled students at Vasquez High School, where the freshman was on the junior varsity football team.

"Football was the only thing for him. He started this year," his father, Jeff Lasater, said in a brief telephone interview.

The family did not know he was being teased, his father said.

"He sounded OK. He didn't tell us," he said.

No suicide note was found, authorities said.

News of the death swiftly reverberated in Acton, a town of just a few thousand in a hilly high-desert region dotted with horse ranches in the Antelope Valley, 50 miles northeast of Los Angeles.

Penny Saunders said she was tending bar at Paul's Place when she saw the ambulance roll by.

"Ten minutes later, the phone rang and they told me a kid had shot himself at the school," she said.

"He never stood up for himself," he said. "He was 6-foot-5, not muscular, kind of on the heavy side, and I guess he would allow other people to push him around."

There were taunts and sometimes more.

"The kids that would sit behind him in class would kick his shoes," he said.

It was unclear how many students were involved in teasing Jeremiah but even if it was not widespread it was "a usual thing," Morales said.John Brooks, 14, did not know the boy personally but said there was general talk around school about him.

"He was one of those nerdy kids. They were always giving him a lot of (trouble)," he said of other students.

Still, he added, "He always had a smile on his face."

On Monday, sometime after lunch, Jeremiah went into a boys' restroom and apparently killed himself with a single shot to the head, authorities said.

The gun was found at the scene and there were no signs of foul play, Morales said.

The boy may have taken the gun to school in a backpack. The school has fewer than 600 students and there are no metal detectors at the doors.The revolver belonged to the boy's family, which kept it along with other weapons in a locked room.

"The guns had been locked up for several years and they didn't even go and check on them," Morales said.